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Over the past weeks, disruptions in power supply have dominated conversations within households, business circles, and social media platforms. This frustration is partly due to the discomfort and cost associated with the erratic blackouts, but also the fear of reliving the era of unreliable recurring power outages that earned the moniker ‘dumsor’ under President Mahama’s first administration.
It’s a period linked to memories of sleepless nights, sounds of generators powering the informal and formal sectors, and unconventional ways health officials adopted to deliver healthcare. The Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and Brookings Institution’s report cites ‘dumsor’ as one of the primary reasons Ghanaians voted out the Mahama government in 2016.
Despite assurances from President Mahama and the Electricity Company of Ghana to allay the fears of Ghanaians that what they are experiencing is not ‘dumsor,’ anxiety continues to persist among many people. This is evident in the recent demand for loadshedding timetable, anger over unplanned outages, and intense political blame game on social media.
Between 13 and 19 May, 2026, there were 5,700 individual social media posts published about ‘dumsor’ with 8,900 engagements reaching a potential of 47.6 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and news websites. The sentiment analysis shows that more than half of the conversations either expressed frustration, unhappiness, or anger. Only a small fraction expressed relief.
Source: Talkwalker
DUBAWA’s tracking of key metrics on the ‘dumsor’ narrative shows the sentiments about the power outages were organic, but the frustrations of social media users were manipulated and artificially amplified by betting accounts, foreign-based actors, and political opponents using fake locations to create a false social media storm, which is in flagrant violation of Community standards on X.
While 64.5 per cent of accounts listed Ghana as their location, those politicising the narrative were amplifying from falsified locations. The United States had 25.1 per cent of the accounts; the United Kingdom had 3.8 per cent; the Netherlands had 1.5 per cent; India had 1.4 per cent; Canada had one per cent; Poland had 0.7 per cent; Libya had 0.4 per cent; Australia had 0.2 per cent; and other results accounted for 1.5 per cent. Using X’s About this account feature, DUBAWA discovered that the accounts claiming to be located in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, among others, were actually operating from Ghana and Nigeria.
Analysis of evidence of artificial amplification
The patterns found four distinct strands of evidence of artificial amplification in the metrics.
Political actors
On the 12 and 13 of May, 2026, there was a spike in the metrics’ theme overview on ‘dumsor.’ A cursory look showed an X account @Gen_Buhari_ as being one of the drivers. The account’s profile said the user is based in Toronto, Ontario. But, the X’s ‘About this account ’ feature found the location is listed in North America.
Source: About This Feature & X profile summary
When @Gen_Buhari_ tweeted “Looks like the whole of Eastern Region is experiencing #Dumsor, Nsawam, Suhum, Anyinam, Abuakwa, etc. are all DARK.” The X platform on which this tweet was made is in Canada. However, this was being made from a false location.
Source: Talkwalker
When @Gen_Buhari_ reposted a post by Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon, John Dumelo, it reached a potential 34,500 users with an engagement of 117. The original tweet reached 2.2 million users. By falsifying the location, the impression is created that the frustration being expressed by the intermittent blackout has gained international traction.
Source: Talkwalker
Political scorecard and location spoofing
Two X accounts @HarunaMohammed, who is the MP for Asunafo North, and @IngEli___, followed by the Presidential Adviser, Joyce bawa Mogtari, were part of the top ten influencers pushing the ‘dumsor’ hashtag.
However, Advanced ‘X’ Analytics showed that they were pushing a counter-narrative to spite their political opponents. @Haruna_Mohammed tweeted,
“Ghanaians are currently enjoying a stable and uninterrupted power supply. The dumsor agenda has clearly fallen flat.” The two X accounts made three posts and reached a potential 8,500 users.
Source: Talkwalker
Another X account, @pastor_mensah, was found countering the dumsor narrative, but was engaged in location spoofing. His tweet, “DUMSOR BY THIS TIME OF THE NIGHT? I believe someone is behind all this nonsense to make the Government unpopular,” was shown to have been published from Australia.
Source: Talkwalker
But X’s ‘About this account feature’ found the location is listed in Ghana. The profile summary shows @Pastor_Mensah using the Vice President, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, as his profile picture. A feature indicative of his political leanings.
Source: X’s About this Account
Geotagging spoofing (multiple fake locations)
DUBAWA’s open source intelligence analysis found multiple accounts that were using fake locations to push the ‘dumsor’ narrative on social media. These accounts @Christos_doe, @Mr_Ceo_____, @iamkwesi_ claimed they were based in Netherlands, however, they actual locations were Ghana and Africa. Other accounts, such as @DjoletoT and @BrakohDona29151, claim they were tweeting from Poland and Libya, but were found to be based in Ghana.
It was only two accounts that were found to be tweeting from the United Kingdom, whose users were based there. This amplification strategy creates the impression that there is global concern for the power outages being experienced in Ghana and also reduces platform moderation on the narrative. According to OSINT Combine interactive framework to identify misinformation, inauthentic content analyzer, some of the simple methods used in falsifying locations are altering language settings, using foreign-based numbers, and scheduling posts through timezone manipulation. Other advanced approaches could be using VPNs, purchasing aged foreign accounts.
Source: Talkwalker and X’s About this account.
Narrative riding
DUBAWA also found a betting account @bethillszone, which is based in Nigeria, routing through the United Kingdom to promote its content by riding on the frustrations being expressed about the intermittent blackout. The metrics on Talkwalker revealed the account behind the spike in trends on the 10th and 15th of May, 2026. This is indicative of the account taking advantage of a crisis in a neighbouring country.
What the numbers reveal
Following the key metrics, between May 7 and 13, 2026, the mentions of the dumsor hashtag were 5,000. But, the mentions results later jumped to 5,700 between May 13 and 19, 2026, which suggests a slight increase in the conversation around the power outages. The engagement in the first time frame was 28,200, but later saw a sharp decline to 8,900 engagements in the second time frame, which suggests a low interaction on the subject. This could mean either inauthentic behaviour or accounts with fewer followers boosted the reach, but it did not generate significant engagement.
Another school of thought, which explains the low interaction, could be a slight improvement in the power situation, thereby signifying the low interest. The sentiments suggest the posts are organic, but engagement has become repetitive, meaning accounts with large followings were artificially amplifying the conversation with a certain agenda in mind.
The verdict
In 2025, the X platform rollout ‘About this account’ feature to expose inauthentic online behaviour and improve digital transparency. This initiative was to allow users to identify spam and bot accounts, as well as foreign-based actors that seek to influence conversations in another country’s civic space. One year on, DUBAWA has found a systemic disguise of local X users as foreign actors to influence sentiments on national issues in Ghana. This is evident in how location listings were falsified to artificially amplify intermittent blackouts, popularly known as dumsor. Of the accounts flagged as tweeting from the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Poland, and Libya, virtually none were actually based there, as data showed that nearly all traced back to Ghana and Nigeria.
That means the impression of global concern was almost entirely fabricated. What the metrics ultimately reveal is a coordinated effort, split between political actors seeking to score political points and commercial accounts exploiting a national crisis for clicks. Ghanaians are genuinely anxious about power supply, but that anxiety is being weaponised by people with no stake in the lights staying on.
